Post-Darwinist

This blog provides stories that Denyse O'Leary, a Toronto-based journalist, has found to be of interest, as she covers the growing intelligent design controversy. It supports her book By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg 2004). Does the universe - and do life forms - show evidence of intelligent design? If so, Carl Sagan was wrong and so is Richard Dawkins. Now what?

Enter your search termsSubmit search form

Custom Search

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Would genome mapper Francis Crick be permitted to suggest that intelligent aliens seeded the universe today?

Over at Uncommon Descent, someone posted a comment in response to the post that is also linked here, askng whether genome mapper Francis Crick's suggestion that aliens had seeded life in our universe would be entertained today. (Crick was stumped by the diffiiculties accounting for the origin of life.)

XXX, I am going to take a flyer on this and say that even Crick would probably be shunned if he said that today.

Back when Crick was a younger, fresher salad, materialists ASSUMED that they could come up with a materialist explanation for the origin of life. They didn’t know that, they assumed it.

And Stanley Miller’s experiment had already convinced them that finding the origin of life was within reach, once they stumbled on a fortuitous circumstance - They were much like cavers (spelunkers) finding a long-dead pirate’s treasure in a cave on an island where key sources attest that he left it.

Under those circumstances, materialists could be expansive. Those materialists too ready to declare a victory based on the latest speculation could well afford to suffer a little smacking down from a senior Nobelist, a little reminder that all quests are difficult by nature.

Who really believed, after all, that aliens had seeded the universe?All Crick was doing was raising the bar. Asking them to definitively rule out intelligence as an explanation.

The TROUBLE was that the bar was really way higher than Crick was proposing to raise it. Today, it is all different. Anyone who proposes that intelligent design is the best explanation had better have someone’s army behind him. And evidence does not matter. Mathematical probability does not matter. Nothing matters but saving materialism.

And that - of course - is behind the move to rid universities of people like Gonzalez, who have (or may have) evidence that materialism is not true.

Manimals: Computer art morphs humans into animals to demonstrate an evolution that never occurred

The Manimal exhibition - "Darwinian art" as some call it - gives you a glimpse of humans as if they were animals. One obvious thing the computer morphed images reveal is the inevitable simplification. Some people do thinkthat way about their fellow humans, but they are mistaken.

And that may be one reason why those particular evolutions never occurred.

Columnist and lawyer Ken Connor weighs in on Gonzalez tenure case

It seems that many scientists and academicians who hold views contrary to Dr. Gonzalez have concluded that the best way to avoid debate about the evidence for intelligent design is to simply deny jobs to those who will not affirm their atheistic worldview. The fact that these scientists, who are supposedly open to following the evidence wherever it leads, have resorted to blatant discrimination to avoid having this conversation speaks volumes about the weakness of their position. They realize their arguments are not sufficient to defeat the intelligent design movement and they must, therefore, shut their opponents out of the conversation. All the evidence suggests that it is unjust that Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure and that this ruling should be overturned on appeal. Nevertheless, what happened to Dr. Gonzalez is a reflection of the growing strength of the intelligent design movement, not its weakness.

My sense is that he is right about Gonzalez' tenure denial demonstrating strength, not weakness. The one thing that the materialist CANNOT abide right now is a frank assessment of the evidence.

Connor's byline describes him as

Ken Connor is Chairman of the Center for a Just Society in Washington, DC and a nationally recognized trial lawyer who represented Governor Jeb Bush in the Terri Schiavo case.

Other Gonzalez case news:

Chuck Colson's team weighs in on "a career-killing theory", recalling the similar cases of Carolyn Crocker and Rick Sternberg:

Gonzalez is not being discriminated against for teaching intelligent design, but simply for believing it. He says he never even taught intelligent design in the classroom. His work on intelligent design has been extracurricular.I’m appalled by the way the scientific and academic community blatantly discriminates against those who suggest that the universe may be something more than the product of chance. Iowa State’s decision is a blatant assault on academic freedom. It is ideological discrimination of the worst kind—something we would not expect in a free society or tolerate in academic institutions that claim to pursue truth.

Here's some information on Gonzalez's citation record, by science Ted Davis, not a fan of intelligent design. Davis is part of the "ASA List" which, heaven knows, I have flayed often enough in the past for playing "political church" while the right of anyone to question materialism in academic life is slowly being eroded. However, the Gonzalez case seems to have scared some of them smart - it's like, so blatant, so obvious, and so public now that only a useful idiot, fellow traveller, or materialist agent could doubt that a serious problem exists. Scroll through the comments I linked, for most interesting reading along those lines.

At Uncommon Descent, Bill Dembski points out an instance where Hector Avalos, an atheist religion prof who is Gonzalez's nemesis, appears to have coyly inflated a member magazine article into a journal article on astronomy. Raises some interesting questions. In the combox, at #15, Dembski notes,

A hundred years from now Gonzalez’s ideas about our place in the cosmos being designed to facilitate scientific discovery will be remembered. Avalos, on the other hand, will be seen as a crank flailing to find justifications for why the evidence of design in the universe is nothing of the sort. A key point to bear in mind: If Avalos is getting promoted for undercutting ID (in popular venues at that), and if ISU denies Gonzalez tenure because of his support of ID, then ISU has not only made up its mind about ID but also undercut academic freedom on this topic.

Well yes, Bill, but that's why the materialists must get rid of Gonzalez in the short term. To them, the short term is all that matters. If Avalos now has tenure, he can use his position more effectively to destroy the careers of any non-materialists. Anyway, at Comment #44, Dembski replies to Avalos's justifications, focusing on the main question we now want to know the answer to:

To Hector Avalos: I’m happy to concede whatever other designations the periodical MERCURY may have. The larger issue is that it is a popular periodical and you cite your piece in it as though it had some leverage against Guillermo Gonzalez and his scholarship. This is patently absurd. Gonzalez is a professional in astrophysics as well as in its larger metaphysical implications. You are an amateur in both. Moreover, the question of just what it took for you to gain tenure at ISU remains. Was your MERCURY piece one of the things you cited as evidence that you should receive tenure? Please answer the question (the timing is right since you were an assistant professor when the piece came out). Was it in fact counted in your favor? If so, why shouldn’t Gonzalez’s PRIVILEGED PLANET count likewise in favor of his tenure? Or do you know in advance (on what grounds? scientific? ideological? philosophical? …) that he’s full of it and you’re not.

This is one combox worth reading!, especially further down where our stalwart contributors start doing the "thang" that brought down Dan Rather - uncovering information that was actually available that no one had bothered to dig out before ...

Cutting violent passages out of Scripture. That reminds me of Bowdler, the English scholmaster who sought to protect the boys by cutting the bawdy passages out of Shakespeare, and gave us the word "bowdlerize" inconsequence.

Of course, Avalos is entitled to his opinions - on some of which I may well dine out, so I certainly don't want the little crank suppressed on that account. Besides, the Bible always changes more lives when people try to suppress it.

But people like Avalos, probably a maverick in his field, always end up outgrowing their ass hats, and then one must really do something.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Polls relevant to the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

Stove, David O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.